Tu Lan closed for health violations

S.F. restaurants

In this file photo, Tu Lan has been a fixture on Sixth Street in San Francisco for decades.

In this file photo, Tu Lan has been a fixture on Sixth Street in San Francisco for decades.

Photo: CRAIG LEE, Craig Lee / The Chronicle

Photo: CRAIG LEE, Craig Lee / The Chronicle

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In this file photo, Tu Lan has been a fixture on Sixth Street in San Francisco for decades.

In this file photo, Tu Lan has been a fixture on Sixth Street in San Francisco for decades.

Photo: CRAIG LEE, Craig Lee / The Chronicle

Tu Lan closed for health violations

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A San Francisco hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese restaurant that has dished out peppered beef, fried rice and ginger fried fish for decades shut its doors Friday, thanks to its fourth temporary closure in the past year and a half for major health violations, authorities said.

Health department inspectors found that Tu Lan, the famous and sometimes infamous establishment nestled in the gritty Sixth Street neighborhood south of Market Street, stored food at improper temperatures, didn't have proper hand-washing stations, was crawling with cockroaches and mice and wasn't bleaching its cleaning cloths.

Hungry customers calling for $5 lunch takeout Monday instead reached an answering machine message that said the restaurant had closed for a month and asked them to call back after Aug. 20 for an update.

A notice of violation dated Friday was taped to the front of the restaurant and said that Tu Lan's permit had been suspended due to "serious or repeated" health violations and that the restaurant was closed until further notice.

Health-violation shutdowns are old news at Tu Lan, said Stephanie Cushing, a city health inspector. Tu Lan was shut down for a day or two at a time in January 2011, September 2011, April 2012 and on Friday.

Each time, inspectors found different combinations of the same health violations, including live mice and cockroaches in the cooking areas, standing water in the kitchen, improper refrigeration and unsanitary food handling.

"They had eggs sitting out for three days, four days," Cushing said. Workers "weren't washing their hands - they were scratching themselves and handling food."

Tu Lan is closed until it can show a clean enough kitchen to re-open, Cushing said. But given the high number of major violations in the past 18 months, the restaurant also faces a hearing where it could have its permit revoked, something Cushing called "the last straw."

The restaurant's owner, Anthony Nguyen, will have to appear at the next health director's hearing on Aug. 8, where the director will decide whether to give the restaurant another chance to clean up or shut it down.

Cushing said the restaurant owners have told her inspectors that they provide a service by selling cheap eats to the cash-strapped people in the neighborhood.

"Sometimes (Nguyen) will say, 'We provide cheap food for people to eat,'" Cushing said. "But in this area of the street, we might have immuno-suppressed people who can't afford to get sick."

Cushing said that Tu Lan had complaints filed against it in the past, but that the frequency and seriousness of the violations have increased. Each year, only a few city restaurants have their permits revoked, she said.

"He's been warned, his employees have been taught, we've explained it," she said.